Rational Security

This week, Scott sat down with his Lawfare colleagues Public Service Fellow Ari Tabatabai and Managing Editor Tyler McBrien to talk through the week’s big news in national security, including:“Great APEC-tations.” President Trump is headed to Asia this week, both for a meeting of the regional Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) organization and a one-on-one sit down with Chinese president Xi Jinping. It’s a moment destined to spotlight one of the more quixotic areas of the second Trump administration’s foreign policy, only complicated further by his (and China’s) increasingly aggressive trade maneuvers, particularly around rare earth minerals. What should we expect this week? And what does it tell us about the Trump administration’s Asia policy?“Pirates of the Caribbean.” The U.S. military build-up in the Caribbean has continued apace, even as the Trump administration has expanded its controversial military campaign against narcotics traffickers into the eastern Pacific. Even as both sets of actions have